Trump administration plans to detain migrant families for months

The Trump administration plans to detain migrant families together in custody rather than release them, according to a new court filing that suggests such detentions could last longer than the 20 days envisioned by a court settlement.

Undocumented immigrant children at a U.S. Border Patrol processing center in McAllen, Texas.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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The Trump administration plans to detain migrant families together in custody rather than release them, according to a new court filing that suggests such detentions could last longer than the 20 days envisioned by a court settlement.

“The government will not separate families but detain families together during the pendency of immigration proceedings when they are apprehended at or between ports of entry,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in a legal notice to a federal judge in California who has been overseeing long-running litigation about the detention of illegal immigrants.

The filing comes as the Justice Department seeks to navigate two different court edicts — an injunction issued earlier this week by a federal judge in San Diego that required the government to begin reuniting the roughly 2,000 migrant children still separated from their families, and an older court settlement in Los Angeles federal court that requires the immigration agencies to release minors in their custody if they are held for more than 20 days.

In the weeks since U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new "zero tolerance" policy toward immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border, roughly 2,500 migrant children were separated from their parents. About 500 of those children have since been reunited with their parents.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Dana M. Sabraw in San Diego issued a preliminary injunction ordering the government to quickly reunite migrant children with their parents, saying that children separated from their families must be returned within 30 days, and allowing just 14 days for the return of children under age 5.

Under the framework of a previous court settlement in the Los Angeles case, the Department of Homeland Security has followed a general practice of not keeping migrant children in the custody of immigration agents for more than 20 days.

The new filing does not explicitly say the Trump administration plans to hold families in custody beyond the 20-day limit, but by saying officials plan to detain them “during the pendency” of immigration proceedings, which in many cases can last months, they imply that families will spend that time in detention.

The Justice Department argued that while the previous settlement had compelled them to release minors “without unnecessary delay,” the new court order, “which requires that the minor be kept with the parent, makes delay necessary in these circumstances.”

Civil rights groups and immigrant advocates are likely to seek additional legal action if migrant families are detained for months. What’s less clear is how the judge in the Los Angeles case, Dolly M. Gee, will view the new approach by the government, and if she will order them to change it.

The filing could spur the judge to approve long-term family detentions. Alternately, the judge may order the administration to release families with monitoring bracelets — though that could provide a political opening for President Trump and other administration officials to blame the judiciary for forcing them to let illegal immigrants into the country.

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